When Spanish guitarist Gerardo Nunez describes the heart of flamenco, his words cut with the same precision as his solos. After discussing the music's history, he slices through not only its popular image, but also an ongoing controversy over authenticity.

"Flamenco is a form of living, a form of expression," Nunez says. "It is a culture of living in the moment."

Hi to everyone interested in Flamenco!. I would like to inform you that a new place in London, where everybody can go to dance Sevillanas and Rumbas, is gonna be open from the 22nd of February.Is gonna happend every sunday from 1pm-7pm for Flamenco and Sevillanas lessons and from 7.30pm for everybody to dance. The first week there is a Flamenco show. If you would like more info you can call 07782318309 or mail miriam99999@hotmail.com

Flamenco is hot - not only in Spain, where the fiery Gypsy songs, music and dance have sizzled for centuries. Not only in New York City, where annual flamenco festivals draw huge crowds, nor in Southern California, where innovative forms of flamenco nuevo are warmly welcomed.

Surprisingly, flamenco is also flourishing right here in Northeast Ohio. Tickets to flamenco concerts at the Cleveland Museum of Art are gobbled up as quickly as tasty tapas at a cocktail party.

SEVILLE, Spain Israel Galván fancies himself a flamenco rebel. To demonstrate his point recently, he performed a section of his "Metamorphoses," which was inspired by the Kafka story and originally presented at Seville's Bienal de Flamenco in 2000. Lying down on the floor of the studio in his house here, he placed his feet on the wall and squirmed like a trapped bug. Slowly he writhed into a standing position and bent his right leg and extended it in front of him. He finished the sequence by spinning across the room in a series of slow pirouettes. Little of what he did seemed even remotely like flamenco.

"People call my movements new and grotesque," Mr. Galván said, "but I copy many of them from photographs of great flamenco dancers from 50 years ago. I just use them differently. I strip the dance to essentials.

A female dancer in touch with her masculine side Two troupes honor a flamboyant, gender-bending flamenco icon

SEVILLE, Spain - Flamenco artists cherish their history. When the CompaÄnia Andaluza de Danza and Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras perform at Emerson College this week in Flamenco Festival USA, they will honor the flamboyant Gypsy dancer Carmen Amaya on the 40th anniversary of her death. An international cultural icon in the '40s and '50s, Amaya crossed the traditional boundaries of flamenco, combining the elegance and grace of the female style with the fierce, high-impact bravado of the male style, going so far as to perform male dances dressed as a man.

Flamenco in the modern world: could this be a contradiction in terms? On one hand, there are the dark sounds of cante jondo, "deep song", created by marginalised gypsies in rural Andalusia two or more centuries ago, and still sung in southern Spain by old-timers.

It can sound less exotic than weirdly lugubrious - reflecting strains of the Judeo-Muslim culture of medieval Spain from which flamenco springs.

That flamenco feeling: Hub festival showcases dance that reigns in Spain .... Anyone who has attended the flamenco festivals in Boston, presented in the past four years by World Music, knows that goose bumps are plentiful in the audience. The excitement continues this weekend when World Music brings two of Spain’s most prominent flamenco ensembles to the Cutler Majestic Theatre: Compania Andaluza de Danza tomorrow and Friday, and Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras on Saturday and Sunday.

If the unrelenting cold weather has you depressed, head over to the Cutler Majestic Theatre this weekend. There can’t be any better remedy for seasonal affective disorder than the splendid Flamenco Festival 2004.

Tuesday marks the first performance of the 4th Annual Flamenco Festival, DC. Tickets are still available for all four performances, but they are going fast. Tickets can be purchased at the Lisner Box Office (Tuesday – Friday, 11am – 5pm, cash & checks only), TicketMaster Outlets, PhoneCharge (202) 432-SEAT, and online at www.ticketmaster.com.

The performances and events associated with the festival are listed below:

This event is FREE and open to the public. It will be held at The George Washington University Marvin Center at 800 21st Street, NW (across H Street from Lisner Auditorium), in the 3rd floor amphitheatre. The Mayor will give a speech about Seville and its three distinct cultures.

The incomparable Paco Pena Flamenco Dance Company accompanied by Pena on guitar, heats up the Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center at Montgomery College in Rockville Sunday at 7:30 with the passion, the precision and the rhythmic dazzle of flamenco. Call 301-279-5301.

Flamenco Festival USA Promises a Warm and Spicy February By Valerie Gladstone Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page C05

GRANADA, Spain

Quote:

Flamenco fans generally fall into two categories. One glorifies tradition while the other welcomes change. They often heatedly argue about whether the art should be brought up to date. But they usually agree on flamenco's icons: the dancers Carmen Amaya and Antonio Gades, the guitarists Sabicas and Carlos Montoya, and Federico Garcia Lorca, the poet and dramatist who wrote lyrics for flamenco songs and the flamenco-infused play "Blood Wedding" -- even if they overlook how controversial they were in their time.

I moved to Cleveland eight years ago, after having lived in Spain for six years, working as a journalist, studying Spanish guitar and hanging out in the smoky flamenco tablaos (clubs) of Madrid where the art form is thriving.

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